What do you do on your "down" day.

[sachilles]

Often, people mention taking a down day, or an off day during their vacation at WDW.

Our tradition, was usually, arrive at MCO mid day. Go to our resort, and hit disney springs the first day. Thinking that maybe we don't waste a park admission for the arrival day.

It's myself, my wife and my son who will be 10. We are WDW veterans, so not much will be new aside from Toy story land on this trip.

We arrive on the last Tuesday in February around 2pm and leave the following tuesday at 2.

Wife and I have annual passes on this trip, and our son will have a traditional ticket. A 6 day vs 7 day is a non issue for us.

When our son was younger, we'd arrive at one park in the morning, then go to our hotel after lunch, power nap, then hit a different park for the evening. That nap was as much for us as it was for our son

Now that our son is older, naps are not something he really embraces. On our last trip, it didn't happen, and the grumpiness level for everyone in our group was a bit elevated. We tour pretty hard. Typically get about 13 miles of walking in a day. The kidlet doesn't like to stop and smell the roses, nor stop and eat when there are rides he could be on. Add some warm temps in there for people escaping snow for a week. You then have some grouchy vacationers.

On this trip we are leaving home a bit later, in the day, so we don't have to get up any earlier than a normal day to get to the airport. I'm thinking we hit one of the parks after a no rush arrival. Either MK or AK(we are staying at AKL for the first time).
My thought is to skip the busiest day of the week for our trip. The crowd calendar says Saturday is the busiest. My thought is sleep in. Really explore our resort, hit the pool. Take an afternoon nap, then hit Disney Springs that night. The rest of the days we'll do an early park for half day and a late park for half day.
The whole point of down day is to rest up a bit and recharge. So I don't expect people do much, but what do you do on your down day?

Wife and I just recently did our very first child free disney trip, just a long weekend during food and wine, and we really enjoyed just taking a slower pace, people watching, and hanging out at the various lounges at the different parks etc.

 

[siren0119]

We built downtime in when we brought our kids last year (DS 8 and 10 at the time). We arrived at MCO around 10:30, got the DME to our resort, swam for a while and I had booked the Hoop Dee Doo Revue for dinner that night. It was a perfect first day because we had time to settle into our room and then head over to FW for some Disney fun without having to get into the parks.

We did two hard hitting park days the next two days. Then we planned a mid morning character breakfast (Chef Mickey's) for the third full day there. We had tickets to MNSSHP that night, but being able to sleep in a little after two really heavy walking days was just what we needed.

The halloween party put us getting to bed close to 1:30am, so we planned a complete down day the next day. We woke up late, ate some breakfast, spent time in the pool, and wandered over to Disney Springs for a late lunch. We were thinking of going to FW for the Chip & Dale's campfire singalong, hiking and checking out the horses, but the kids just wanted to swim so we ordered pizza and stayed poolside until they shut down for the night.

We were totally recharged for our last two hard hitting park days before heading home. I don't think I'd do it any other way when the kids are with us!

 

[ShellyKP]

On our last family trip we scheduled a resort day. It wasn't necessarily for relaxing but it was a slower pace than our park days. We went resort hopping at some Deluxe resorts. We started the day at the Polynesian for a breakfast at Ohana. (we used Lyft to get there). Then we rode the monorail to the other Deluxe resorts and just enjoyed the atmosphere there, did some souvenir shopping, pin trading, etc. We also ended up doing a DVC tour and becoming members but that's another story! Our resort touring was only part of the day. We also planned some pool time/laundry time in the early evening before dinner.

 

[Kathleen Zwally]

Usually we do

Arrival 3pm to resort
Swim 330-5
Clean up for dinner 5-6
Ohana dinner 7-8
Watch fireworks and enjoy poly 8-930
10pm bed

Rope drop Mk 8am-3
Rest hotel 4-6
Back to mk 7-10

Epcot rope drop 9am-3
Rest hotel 4-6
Back to epcot 7-930 or nice dinner

HS rope drop 9am-3
Rest hotel 4-6
Back to HS 7-930 or nice dinner

Ak rope drop 9am-3
Rest hotel 4-6
Back 7-930 or nice dinner

Mk rope drop 8am-3
Rest hotel 4-6
Back 7-10

* This year I booked through an agency that gives you free waterpark passes so we are going to go to the water park after our Hollywood studios day as our down day. We will visit the water park from about 10-4 , then we will go back to hotel for rest and then go to a nice buffet dinner

 

[NH-to-FL]

When DW and I vacationed on site at WDW we always planned a "rest day" in the middle of our visit. After a couple of days of up early for morning extra magic hour park visits we would enjoy a day of sleeping in.

Then we would find someplace to have a late breakfast/brunch. Then we might do some off site grocery shopping to restock the room snacks. Maybe do some laundry in the afternoon on longer visits. Later in the afternoon or evening we would usually wander over to Epcot for some food. Staying at the Boardwalk made for a very flexible "rest day".

 

[kaetra]

I have no “down” days, but I am planning a longer trip so dont feel like I have to do rope drop to close every day. It’s gonna be so hard! I’ll probably try to do a couple shorter park days with more sitting down time at the parks. Walking doesn’t really wear me out, but standing is a killer.

I just need to find some comfy nooks to sit and soak in the atmosphere.

 

[bluezy]

Our down day still includes park time. We actually schedule two "down" days during our stay. We usually spend 4-5 hours at Epcot on arrival day just using FPs and having dinner -- no commando touring that day. The next 2 days are usually rope drop/afternoon break/return to park until park closing days. The next day is a "down" day -- we sleep in, have a late breakfast/early lunch, and then spend a few hours in a park either that afternoon or evening. Sometimes we'll also schedule a fireworks cruise for that evening. Then we have 2 more "long" days followed by another "down" day.

We used to make our first down day a no-park day but we quickly realized that by afternoon we were wishing we had planned to go to a park because at that point, we felt well rested and ready to do something. So several trips ago we transformed our down day into just a "slow" day that still includes some park time.

 

[CrankyDad]

Mini golf. The harder course were it is putting greens. The one near swan and dolphin. We walk there play and then hit the boardwalk.

 

[a742246]

We usually go to Disney Springs and do a boat tour of the resorts on our off days. eg. take the boat ride to old key west and back from Disney Springs. Boat ride from MK to GF to POly and back. Boat ride from MK to Wilderness lodge and back.

 

[tinkerjo]

Last year we took the entire weekend that we arrived enjoying fort wilderness and everything it had to offer( including a golf cart for a day-so much fun) we then hit the parks for 5 days. Even though we do 3/4 days, our dogs were barking by day 4. Next trip the general consensus was to take another resort day about day 3 just to swim, relax, Disney Springs, or a nice dinner. This was our first time ever having a resort day and I don’t think I could go again without it

 

[MeggyScumEsquire]

We like to use our down day to do a bit of shopping and just swim and explore the hotels or Disney springs. If we have a car we like to do mini golf off site. This time we changed our plans around a bit and took an uber to the outlet mall and back and then did typhoon lagoon in the afternoon - I guess that makes it not such a down day!

 

[Erica Vealey]

Hi! We will be visiting in February but earlier in the month. We usually do long weekend trips from Friday-Monday. We live a little over 3.5 hours away so we feel grateful we can go a bit more and doing a long weekend, we don't have to take many vacation days with work.

Our schedule for 3 night/4 days with 2 day park tickets are:

Friday-arrival day, get there between 11 am-2 pm (depending on when we leave home, usually it's very early because the waiting is too much to handle lol) check in, (most of the time we've already received our text that our room is ready before check in) hop on the bus to DS for early dinner reservation, walk around, and shop, then head back to the resort for a night swim, and late snack.

Saturday-Whichever park we're planning to go to but the one that has the EMH on Saturday first. We do a breakfast on the go, there by rope drop, lunch around 11, snack around 2, leave park for dinner around 4:30, then rest, freshen up and head back to the park about 6, and snack around 9. (we try to eat opposite of the routine meal times so we can eat when the crowds are not bad. This year for our trip in April, we started using the mobile ordering and that has been a huge savings on time not to mention standing in lines to order.

Sunday-Another park day, either the same or different...we sometimes change our minds after getting there. Same meal and rest schedule as above.

Monday-Check out at 11, load the car, hop on the bus/monorail for a brunch either at O'hana or Chef Mickey's, resort hop and shop via monorail loop, have a snack then head to resort to pick up car and head home.

Our schedule for just 2 nights and 3 days with 1 day park ticket is:

Friday-arrival day, get there between 11 am-2 pm, check in, hop on the bus/monorail dinner reservations, go resort hopping via monorail loop, walk around, and shop, then head back to the resort for a night swim, and late snack.

Saturday-Park day! Same meal/rest schedule as in the above trip.

Sunday-Check out at 11, load the car, hop on the bus to DS for lunch reservation, walk around, and shop, then ride the bus back to get in the car to cry all the way home lol...

 

[Callist]

Sleep in, mini golf, tea at the Grand Floridian, then spent the afternoon at the pool

 

[verleniahall]

We usually get into mco between 1-2 depending on what flights are available.
We have done it both ways - get to the resort, drop off bags in room, change clothes, and then hit a park, but we have also done the Disney springs and relax - they were booth nice, BUT we were super exhausted since we had been up since 3:30am we only spent a few hours in the park.

Our mid trip ‘off days’ have consisted of Typhoon Lagoon just relaxing, playing in the wave pool, etc... since it opens later than the other parks.

We’ve done Disney Springs - it’s fun to wander around, and they have an awesome photopass studio that we do photos at

We’ve used our day off to do the DVC tour when we were looking - it was a great way to be able to relax and the. Just be picked up and go. The afternoon of his day, we use it to do a monorail hop since they will drop you off wherever you would like to go.